


From Yesterday

by thedemonkingawakes



Series: Keep Your Friends Close [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Oneshot, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sequel to Children of the Red Room, implied Clintasha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 10:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2064396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedemonkingawakes/pseuds/thedemonkingawakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the sequel to Children of the Red Room. </p><p>Clint helps Bucky out with a problem and tries to convince him that avoiding Steve isn't doing anyone any favors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Yesterday

Clint was woken by a loud, insistent pounding on the door of the apartment he shared with Natasha. Snapping into awareness, he stumbled to the door and pulled it open.

“Natalia.” Bucky stopped speaking and looked at Clint. “I’m sorry, I was looking for Natalia Romanoff. I must have the wrong apartment.”

“Nah, you’re in the right place. Come on in.” Clint pulled the door open wider to let Bucky in. “Nat just left twenty minutes ago. You just missed her.”

“I’ll just go then.” Bucky said, an unidentifiable emotion in his voice. Clint thought Bucky seemed panicky, an odd thing for a super soldier with a bionic arm to be.

“Hang on. What did you need Natasha for?”

“Something went wrong and I needed her advice.”

“Sit down. I’ll grab some coffee for us and then you can tell me what happened.” Clint disappeared into the kitchen. He returned a few minutes later with two mugs of fresh coffee. “You’re Bucky Barnes, right? Natasha’s told me a lot about you. So, problem?”

“I think I might have inadvertently led Hydra to Steve.”

Clint jumped up from the couch, nearly upsetting his coffee mug. “Why didn’t you start with that?” Not waiting for an answer, Clint continued. “Do you know where Steve is now?”

“Probably at his apartment, asleep.”

Clint was already in motion, grabbing his bow and quiver from the hook by the door. “There are weapons in the closet over there. Grab a sniper rifle and some close range weapons.”

Bucky stepped into the closet and began looking through the weapons. Clint could hear the faint click of a gun being assembled.

“Don’t take Tasha’s electric weapons. She’s particular about them.”

“You know, most people wouldn’t trust me with weapons this quickly.” Bucky called.

“Natasha’s told me a lot about you. She trusts you, and I trust her judgment.”

Bucky appeared in the door of the closet, a sniper rifle slung over his shoulder and several handguns tucked into holsters.

“You have a ride?”

“How do you think I got here?”

Clint tossed Bucky a comm. “You’re a super soldier. Normal doesn’t seem to apply to you guys.”

The pair of them dashed out of the apartment, their coffees sitting forgotten on the coffee table, and mounted their motorcycles. With a dangerous grin, Bucky sent his motorcycle speeding towards Steve’s apartment.

“So, does Steve know you’re back? I mean, have you told him. He obviously knows you’re not dead, since he and Sam have been spending every spare moment looking for you.” Clint asked over the comms.

“Steve’s been looking for me?”

“Yeah, ever since Shield fell. He’s been splitting his time between the Avengers and looking for you. I assumed you knew.”

“No, I thought Steve was hunting down Hydra. Everywhere he went, he destroyed another base.”

Before they could continue their conversation, they arrived at a police blockade.

“Stay here.” Clint ordered. He climbed off his bike and slipped through the crowd.

“Officer, what’s going on here?”

“Why should I tell you?”

With a sigh, Clint pulled out his Shield badge. “Special Agent Barton. I work for Shield. Now, what’s going on?”

“Captain America’s fighting some masked men with machine guns.”

“How many?”

“We can’t get a clear count. They’re moving too fast. My men have reported at least ten assailants.”

“Are there any civilians inside your perimeter?”

“Possibly. We don’t know for certain.”

Doing his best to keep the annoyance out of his voice, Clint said, “Send a man to the nearest television station. I want an alert on as many channels as you can manage. Tell the civilians to keep off the streets.”

“Should we help the Captain?”

“My colleague and I will take care of it.” Clint put his finger over his ear to try and block some of the noise. “Sergeant Barnes, I want you on the roof of Cap’s building.”

“Already on my way, Barton. Where will you be?”

“I’ll be on the roof across the street.”

Clint vaulted over the barrier and swiftly climbed up the fire escape of one of the apartment buildings. From his vantage point on the roof, he could see Steve surrounded by a group of Hydra agents.

~*~*~

Steve caught yet another round of bullets on his shield. One of them grazed his arm, but he barely noticed. It seemed like for every agent he took out, two more took their place. He lashed out, kicking an agent away from him.

Suddenly, one of the Hydra agents stumbled and fell backwards, a black arrow protruding from his chest. Several more fell in quick succession, both to arrows and bullets.

The Hydra agents backed away to regroup, giving Steve a moment to look around. He found Clint standing on the roof of one of the apartment buildings across the street. Clint had an arrow nocked and aimed at the Hydra agents. He nodded at Steve, silently letting him know he had his back. Steve turned to look at his own building, expecting to see Natasha sitting on the roof with a gun. Instead, he found himself staring at a familiar face. Bucky was lying on his stomach at the edge of the roof, a sniper rifle in his hands, just like he had done during the war. Bucky grinned dangerously and tipped a two fingered salute in Steve’s direction. Steve returned the salute and smiled before whirling around and slamming his shield into the approaching Hydra agents.  

Between the three of them, they made quick work of incapacitating the remaining Hydra operatives. A dark, unmarked van came and several Shield agents escorted the captured Hydra agents away. Clint joined Steve inside Steve’s partially destroyed apartment.

“Where’s Bucky?”

“He left as soon as all the Hydra agents were taken out. Clint crouched down by the overturned record player and began picking up the unbroken records. Steve grabbed a broom from the closet and started sweeping the shattered records into a pile.

“How’d you find Bucky anyways? Sam and I have been looking for him for months without a trace.”

“He found me actually. Well, he was looking for Nat, but she wasn’t there.” Seeing Steve’s confused look, he clarified. “Bucky and Nat are old… acquaintances. From the Red Room.”

Steve didn’t ask any more questions. Working together in a companionable silence, they did their best to clean up Steve’s apartment. The broken things were swept up and put in big, black trash bags. The salvageable things were all righted and put back where they belonged.  

Several hours later, after the apartment had been cleaned up as much as it could, Steve asked, “If you see Bucky again, would you tell him I want to see him?”

“Sure thing.” Clint grabbed his bow and quiver from the coatrack and opened the door.

“Barton, did he… did Bucky seem okay?”

Clint considered it for a moment. “I think he seemed okay, about as well as could be expected under the circumstances.” Steve didn’t look reassured. “Listen Cap, I won’t pretend to know all that much about you and Bucky, but I can tell you this; Bucky was worried about you. He was pretty focused on protecting you, like you were his responsibility or something.”

Clint left, pulling the door shut silently behind him before Steve had time to fully process the information.

“That’s Bucky. That’s always been Bucky.” Steve said, chuckling sadly as the words reverberated around his empty apartment.

~*~*~

When Clint got back to his apartment, Bucky was waiting for him, sitting on the couch in the dark.

“Why’d you leave? Steve wanted to talk to you.”

“I can’t face Steve, not after everything I’ve done. Steve -and everything he stands for- is so good, so pure. I’m not. I’m not worthy of Steve’s friendship.”

“Look, I don’t know if you noticed, but Steve doesn’t exactly make friends with people you would consider worthy. His closest friends are Sam Wilson, a soldier with mechanical wings; Tony Stark, the ex-weapons dealer; Natasha Romanoff, an assassin; and other people like them.”

“I don’t think you understand,” Bucky said, his voice low and menacing. “I’ve done bad things, unforgivable things. Steve would never be able to forgive me for what I’ve done.”

“That’s not your decision to make. Tell me, in as long as you’ve known him, did Steve ever back down from a fight?”

“No. He said he didn’t like bullies.”

“Then why did he refuse to fight you?” Clint let his words sink in before he continued. “It was for the same reason he has been looking for you for months. He sees something worth saving in you and he’s not going to give up on you.”

“He should.”

Clint sat down in one of the armchairs. “I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I regret. I’m sure you have. Hell, I’m sure we all have.” He held up a hand to stop Bucky from speaking. “Steve’s single greatest regret is that he wasn’t good enough to save you when you fell.”

Bucky stood up abruptly and left as the full impact of Clint’s words hit him.

~*~*~

Under the cover of darkness, Bucky crept up the steps to the door of Steve’s apartment. He pulled a folded note from his jacket and shoved it through the mail slot before melting back into the night. Several minutes later, Steve found the note sitting just inside the door. He picked it up and sat down in his armchair to read it.

~*~*~

Sitting on the fire escape, looking through the window of Steve’s apartment, Bucky could see a single tear slide down Steve’s cheek and fall onto the crumpled note in his hand. Satisfied that his friend was safe, if not happy, Bucky dropped to the ground and took off running, not once looking back.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry, I'm going to write a third part to this series. I wouldn't end it with Bucky running away and not reuniting with Steve. (I'm a sucker for at least kinda happy endings).  
> Also, what was on the note Bucky left for Steve. Mwahahah, you shall have to wait and see. (It will probably be sad though.)
> 
> I think Clint is the type of person who knows when you need to be blunt and is capable of being quite blunt, which is   
> something I think Bucky needs.   
> I know I describe Bucky as grinning dangerously a lot, but in my mind that is what his grin looks like post being the Winter Soldier. It's the type of grin that is part careless and part deadly. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed it.


End file.
